informative video on solar energy
 

Cliffnotes? Video have 50 minutes.

It's a pretty interesting video and worth watching.

The take-aways are this:

He lives off the grid. He gets his energy from Diesel, Solar panels and wind.

He has high energy costs: Heating in the winter, cooling in the summer, plus 4 or 5 freezers.

He has 2 x 12 volt 400 Watt Wind turbines that do almost nothing because there is little to no wind where he is. Why he bought them I don't know.

His solar works but effecincy is all over the place because his panels are fixed direction and don't turn towards the sun.

He uses Diesel to run a power generator sometimes. He uses diesel instead of propane but did not say why except that it is "more baddass". For a guy that seems to have alot of experiments going on, that answer is weird.

amortization of 15 years puts the cost at about $700 per month with diesel and a Jenny being about 300 per month :thumbsup